Archive for January, 2010.
Cor blimey! Sir Richard Branson sure is ambitious. Just when you thought conquering the final frontier was all that the Virgin empire was fixated upon, today it announces a new product for its Limited Edition retreats on Planet Earth — the Necker Nymph aero submarine. As the ‘aero’ part implies, the vehicle relies on “downward ‘lift’ on the wings” to counteract its positive buoyancy during its two-hour dives, which probably means it can’t remain stationary underwater while you grab nearby weeds or whatnot in those open cockpits. Still, given the chance, we suspect any mere mortal would be up for a spin if beached on Necker Island — ‘course, coming up with the $25,000 per week lease rate may prove to be an insurmountable task.
Virgin goes underwater with Necker Nymph aero submarine originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 29 Jan 2010 12:19:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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With the G1 on its last legs, the CLIQ stands as T-Mobile USA’s only QWERTY Android set — and for a carrier that seems as committed to Android as T-Mobile does, that doesn’t seem right, now, does it? Indeed, that rumored myTouch Slide looks like it’s going to get real here pretty shortly now that we’re seeing shots of the thing in the wild, and… well, it looks nothing like the original myTouch 3G (and even less like the Fender edition). Beauty is certainly in the eye of the beholder — and we’d want to wait until we see this in the flesh — but the myTouch Slide appears to lack the old model’s attractive contours, sticking with a spartan design strangely paired to a chrome-ringed earpiece. Besides the clear addition of an optical pad here (something we’d previously heard HTC would be pushing hard in 2010), it’s apparently got an HVGA display, externally accessible microSD slot, camera with flash, and unfortunately, an old-school ARM11 processor. We’re holding out hope that T-Mobile has plenty of higher-end gear waiting in the wings, but for now, this looks like the G1′s true spiritual successor.
T-Mobile myTouch Slide in the wild? originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 29 Jan 2010 11:48:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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It’s total pie-in-sky speculation, completely lacking in serious evidence or even vague “sources familiar with the matter,” but for some reason, after two and a half years of hard rumoring, analysts seem more sure than ever that Amazon is looking into a Netflix acquisition. Netflix just announced some pretty attractive quarterly earnings, along with some nice hard numbers: it added one million subscribers in Q4 to notch itself past the 12 million mark, and 48% of its customers streamed at least 15 minutes of video off of Instant Watch — compared to 28% a year ago. The logic goes that Amazon’s looking to position itself as a digital goods purveyor, and Netflix is doing a bang up job of that very thing. Sounds just fine to us, but if Amazon tries to lock us into E Ink Netflix streaming on the Kindle, some heads are going to roll. There’s naturally no comment from Netflix or Amazon on the speculation.
[Thanks, Steve H.]
Netflix earnings, subscribers and streaming growth have analysts drooling over a theoretical Amazon buy originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 29 Jan 2010 11:29:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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The more I see devices like the new Apple iPad, the more I come to appreciate Steven Spielberg’s 2002 sci-fi spectacular “Minority Report.” It was the first thing I thought of when I saw video of the company’s newest “magical” creation and executives demonstrating its New York Times app. The app seamlessly integrated video content with the usual Grey Lady font and text. With a finger-tap on multi-touch screen, video boxes pop up to enhance what you’re reading on the iPad, and all done within the stylistic confines we’ve come to know and appreciate with the Times.
Before Wednesday, if the rumors were to be believed, Apple was not only on the brink of jettisoning its exclusive U.S. arrangement with AT&T for the iPhone, but that it would also roll out its tablet device with support from multiple carriers. That, of course, didn’t happen. AT&T is still the exclusive carrier for the iPhone, and no indication was given that the situation would change soon. AT&T is also the exclusive 3G carrier for the iPad — or at least, the versions of the iPad capable of 3G connections.
What is Red Hat up to with its launch this week of the opensource.com Web page? This replaces the “Truth Happens” page which ran articles and videos on open source, intellectual property, transparency and other issues. “Opensource.com is now the place to go to find out about how open source principles are re-shaping business, law, art and, of course, technology,” wrote Colin Dodd on the “Truth Happens” page to announce its closing. “We had a great run over here, but the subject outgrew this forum.”
Apple is allowing iPhone owners to use Internet calling services over cellular networks. Several companies offering Voice over Internet Protocol — or VoIP — services said this week that Apple now allows their applications to work on the iPhone. VoIP calling has been available on the iPhone, but only over WiFi connections, which don’t have the range of 3G cellular networks. Apple on Thursday confirmed the change and said it applies to applications for the iPhone and the new iPad tablet device unveiled this week, some of which will come with 3G capabilities.
Google promoted its Social Search experiment to beta status on Wednesday. Social Search adds information and images from users’ public pages to the results of online searches conducted by members of their social network. Users need a Google profile to get results from Social Search. Social has been added to other Google applications like Google Images, so when people with a Google profile conduct a search on images, they may get pictures their friends and other online contacts have published publicly on photo-sharing sites like Picasa Web Albums and Flickr.
While MvixUSA’s Ultio was a worthy successor to the earlier MvixPVR in most regards, it lacked one crucial feature: video recording. That’s back in the new Ultio Pro, which delivers all the plethora of media support as before (MKV, h.264, DivX, Xvid, Quicktime, FLV, etc.), adding the ability to record content — though sadly only standard definition stuff via a set of old faithful red/white/yellow composite inputs. Once connected to your LAN via Ethernet or optional 802.11n adapter it can also act as a Torrent client, downloading to a (likewise optional) 2TB hard drive, and all that video is beamed back at ya over component, composite, or HDMI outputs, pictured below. The Pro starts at $169, the same as the Ultio, but if you want one with 2TB of storage it’ll set you back a rather more dear $348.
Continue reading MvixUSA’s Ultio goes Pro, gets PVRified
MvixUSA’s Ultio goes Pro, gets PVRified originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 28 Jan 2010 09:58:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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At our last update after Q1 ’09, Netflix had just triumphantly smashed through the 10 million customer barrier, although that’s well in the rear view mirror now that the company is celebrating the addition of 1 million customers in the last quarter alone. With a subscriber base of 12.3 million (48% of whom have checked out a movie on Watch Instantly last year) its next step is to expand beyond U.S. borders, with plans to offer a streaming-only package to an unnamed new country in the latter half of this year; Hacking Netflix guesses Canada or even the UK could be potential expansion targets. Even the possibility of a Disney/Starz fallout affecting streaming didn’t dampen the mood, during the earnings call CEO Reed Hastings seemed confident it could keep doing deals for compelling movies going forward, with WB, Sony, MGM, Paramount and others either signed up or renewed during Q4 alone. Still, don’t expect those dealings to extend to new releases — Hastings is comfortable sticking with a cable-like viewing window for internet delivered movies in combination with the existing disc rentals, for now.
Even Roku, closely tied to Netflix’s internet-to-TV efforts since they began, is thinking big. As CEO Anthony Wood tells Bloomberg, we can expect the box itself to reach the low, low price of free sooner rather than later as the company works out revenue sharing deals with various subscription and video on-demand services, bringing it up to “the same kinds of channels that any cable operator can offer.” It’s set goals of 1 million set-top boxes sold by the end of the year (already over 500,000) and 100 channels, we figure another half-off sale or two should get things done in no time.
Netflix celebrates Q4 success of 1 million new subscribers and eyes bigger growth ahead; Roku too originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 28 Jan 2010 09:36:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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